


Chrysalis

by sariane



Category: The Amazing Spider-Man (Movies - Webb)
Genre: Fix-It, Gen, The Amazing Spider-Man 2 Spoilers, a better and spoilery summary is in the author's notes, but we're not here for the ships, implied Harry Osborn/Peter Parker, mentioned past Peter Parker/Gwen Stacy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-03
Updated: 2014-05-03
Packaged: 2018-01-21 19:50:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,992
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1561970
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sariane/pseuds/sariane
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Gwen chooses a different path.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chrysalis

**Author's Note:**

> **Contains major spoilers for The Amazing Spider-Man 2.**
> 
>  
> 
> This fic is a character death fix for the movie. It's a dark twist on Gwen Stacy and introduces a partnership between her and Harry Osborn.
> 
> I was...less than happy with the movie, and this fic happened after I got home and stewed on it awhile. This is definitely different in tone than the movie, so be forewarned. (also it’s pretentious as hell, i’m sorry, i wrote it right after watching hannibal.)
> 
> Forgive me if I’ve misremembered any of the movie and just pretend any inconsistencies are a part of “artistic license.” Yep. Artistic license. (Also, if you actually know something about science, this fic may hurt you physically.) 
> 
> Warnings:  
> -Depiction of implied mental illness   
> -Description of needles/injections  
> -Mild ableist language (?)  
> -Mild body horror (including a corpse)  
> -Swearing  
> -Temporary character death  
> Please let me know if I've missed any warnings!

Harry leans back against the hole’s earthen walls, a hand twitching nervously on his watch, eyes fluttering as he stares up at the stars.

Well. What he imagines are stars, somewhere beyond the orange-yellow light of the city. ( _This fucking city_ , he thinks, chuckling to himself.) He switches the light on his watch and checks the time, anticipation burning within him.

_Five minutes._

He has dirt in his hair and underneath his fingernails, and it’s not exactly comfortable, draping yourself over a coffin, but Harry doesn’t care. The stars are beautiful tonight – somewhere, at least.

Harry looks down at his watch. _Three minutes._ He picks at the diamonds set into the metal, swipes his thumb across the crystal clock face. It leaves a smear of dirt. He laughs, low and deep, and feels the sound like panic bubble up inside his chest.

_Two minutes._

He stares up at the stars again, thinking about the last time he saw them properly. God, he hates this city.

Even away at boarding school, or sitting in some posh villa in Europe, Harry had never bothered to learn the names of any of the constellations. He wonders if it’s really worth it to bother with the stars, with their names and symbols and _stories_ , when they’re nothing but tiny pinpricks of light. Burning balls of gas. Burning themselves up, inside and out, or something like that.

_One minute._

He climbs up out of the grave in the end, because there’s something a little more satisfying about sitting amongst the piles of dirt, legs hanging over the edge as he stares down. The moon’s shining brightly, thankfully, so he can make out the pallor of Gwen’s face. It’s like a mask, hardened and shiny. She looks peaceful there in her funeral dress. She doesn’t look like she’s sleeping.

_Thirty seconds,_ and Harry throws his head back and laughs.

***

“Gwen Stacy,” Harry Osborn says as Gwen sticks her head out her front door.

“That _is_ my name,” Gwen says, raising an eyebrow. “Yours is Harry Osborn. And you’re at my house. Hi.”

She glances around outside, but there’s nothing out of the ordinary, just an expensive car at the curb. She thought it was Peter…

“So, uh,” Gwen starts awkwardly. (She doesn’t know him, not really, and now that she thinks about it, it’s weird that Peter never mentioned growing up with Harry Osborn. Peter was secretive, yeah, but she was his sole confidant. Wasn’t she?) “What are you doing here?” she asks.

“I’m taking a detour,” Harry says, like that makes  sense. He cracks a smile.

His eyes are red in the same way Gwen’s eyes were for months after her dad’s death.

“Walk with me,” he says, holding out an arm. She thinks about how he lost his father, too. She’d seen it on the news.

“I’m kinda busy, I’m packing, I have to leave,” Gwen babbles, looking over her shoulder and back into the house. No one’s noticed the visitor on their doorstep. She turns back to Osborn.

“I know Parker is Spider-Man,” Harry says, grin never slipping.

Gwen takes his arm.

*

“You could go to any school you wanted,” Harry says, shaking his head. “Anywhere. And you go to Oxford.”

They’re walking down Gwen’s street like old friends, arms entwined like they’re in an old movie. Harry feels more like an escort than a threat.

“What’s wrong with Oxford?” Gwen says, affronted. Now that she’s close to him, she can smell the alcohol on his breath. He isn’t dead drunk, but he’s definitely not sober.

“Nothing,” Harry shrugs. “It’s boring.”

“And I can’t exactly go _anywhere_ ,” Gwen snorts. “I mean, some of us have to take out loans and apply to scholarships, you know. Some of us _apply_ to schools.”

“I applied to schools,” Harry says. It’s his turn to sound affronted.

“You applied with your bank account,” Gwen says, “not your academic merit. It’s different.”

“What if _you_ could apply using _my_ bank account?” Harry says. He shakes his head. “Shit. That came out weird.”

“You’re trying too hard,” Gwen says. “This whole, I don’t know, English schoolboy thing is kinda creeping me out, honestly. And this coming from the girl with the creepy stalker ex-boyfriend.” Gwen stops on the sidewalk and drops Harry’s arm. “No offense.”

“He’s your ex?” Harry says, raising his eyebrows.

“Oh, god,” Gwen sighs, rolling her eyes. “You were not going to kidnap me and use me to lure him to you, were you? That’s just, I don’t know,” she shakes her head, “ _shitty._ I get it, you’re mad at him for not giving you his blood, but the guy has a point. It’s more likely to kill you than save you. Remember giant lizard guy–?”

“I’m not Connors,” Harry snaps. “I’m different.”

“You’re different because you want to – to what? Take some mutated blood and inject yourself with it to magically fix this virus?” Gwen raises an eyebrow. “And it’s going to cure all your ills? Really? Science doesn’t work like that.”

“And you’d know,” Harry says, clearing his throat.

“Well, yeah, I think I would, considering the whole Oxford thing you seem so disgusted – wait,” Gwen says, turning on him. “Oh my _god._ ”

“Oscorp needs to go down,” Harry says. “Parker needs to go down. And we’re the only ones with enough brains to pull this off. You do the science, I’ll handle the funding. All we need are the resources Oscorp technically _doesn’t_ have any more, and the freedom to experiment…without anyone meddling.”

Gwen blinks at him in disbelief.

“You are fucking _insane._ ”

*

“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” Gwen mutters as she pulls out the next beaker and scans it into the system. The holograms shining in front of her make it look simple, all of it down to DNA. It’s anything but simple, really, but Harry thinks it is.

“If it helps, I don’t believe you’ve actually done anything yet,” Harry says. He’s kind of a dick, if Gwen is going to be honest with herself. (She gets why Peter liked him. _Likes_ him.)

“You’re a rich asshole,” she frowns, squinting at something on the computer screen.

“Do you have to keep mentioning the fact that I’m rich?” he asks. Harry leans back in his chair, tipping it onto the back legs like a middle-schooler, and Gwen kind of wants to push him over.

When Harry tilts his head to the side to smirk at her, she sees a sickly, scaly patch of skin on his neck. Gwen worries her lips. She turns back to the holographic model and twists it around, looking for the right mutation. She types something into the computer to highlight the changes in its code.

“You’re the one trying to bribe me into this,” she mutters.

“Successfully, I might add,” Harry chuckles.

God. Why does she put up with assholes like this guy?

“What’s Elektra up to?” Gwen asks, changing the subject. She moves on to the next DNA model.

“It’s Electro,” Harry corrects. She rolls her eyes.

“Whatever. What’s his game?” she asks. “I mean, you got this whole, ‘daddy issues, terminal illness, _rich_ angst machine’ thing going on. He’s…he seemed like a nice guy. Why the sudden power trip?” She blows a strand of hair out of her eyes. “Pun intended.”

“Don’t know, didn’t ask,” Harry shrugs. “Guy needs therapy. _I_ probably need therapy.”

“Not to be, y’know, but you probably do,” Gwen says, a bitter note entering her voice. “Like I said. Daddy issues as big as your bloated bank account.”

“As big as Parker’s?” Harry asks with a sneer. Gwen stops and looks up from the latest DNA model, setting down the beaker in her hand. She fixes Harry with a glare.

“Why do you keep doing that?” she asks. He starts to look confused, but she shakes her head. “No. Tell me, Osborn. Why do you keep doing that to him? He was your best friend, once. I’d say he still is the closest thing you’ve got to one.”

“Don’t you get it?” Harry snaps. He sits up in his stupid chair, the legs hitting the floor with a sound that would startle Gwen if she wasn’t expecting this shit by now. “He _betrayed_ me. He says he’s my friend, but he turns me away when I need him the most.”

“Seems to me like you’re just more upset that he doesn’t need you the way you need him,” Gwen says. “I get it, you have this sick vendetta against Spider-Man. But maybe the reason he won’t help you is because he thinks he already _is_. Peter is noble to a fault, sometimes. He helped Connors, at first.”

“Connors was—“

“He blames himself for what Connors did,” Gwen says over Harry’s pathetic drawl. “He doesn’t want to see that happen to you. He hasn’t seen you in _years,_ Harry, but he knocks on your door the second you come back to town, he comes to you as Spider-Man and risks his secret identity to tell you he’s sorry he can’t help, he offers his shoulder for you to cry on, and you – what? Think he doesn’t care about you?”

“If he cared,” Harry snaps, “he’d save me.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t blame others for not saving you when you won’t save yourself,” Gwen snaps right back.

She turns to her work again, chest heaving with anger and fear as she goes through the models.

Harry is quiet as she runs them each through the tests, watching in silence.

The spider venom mutates the first model almost beyond recognition. Connors’ serum turns the second into Frankenstein. The amphibian and reptile hybrid models rip the model to shreds, and the insect model doesn’t seem to make a difference at all.

She glances at Harry with his blazing red eyes, his flinching away every time he catches himself itching at the patch on his neck, his tremulous hands  that he balls up into fists and shoves into his pockets. He might be a monster, a murderer, but someone loves him. He deserves a chance to live.

Gwen keeps trying.

*

“You’re right,” Harry says. He’s burned out, but he’s finally sober, and Gwen insisted that they wait. There’s enough shit in his system without another factor to account for.

“Damn right I am,” Gwen nods. She switches off the lab mixer and carefully takes the beaker out of the machine. “What am I right about?”

“Parker’s the closest thing I ever had to a best friend,” Harry says, rubbing at his eye.

He watches her carefully as she pours the serum into a vial and picks up a needle. He tenses up like a kid about to get a shot. Afraid of needles, she thinks. It’s absurd. Kid’s got all of his shots up-to-date and had bi-yearly blood-work on behest of his father, according to his medical files.

But it’s not exactly an irrational fear. Not in this case.

“He’s a good choice for one,” Gwen says softly. “He’s a good kid. Even if you don’t believe that.”

“Oh, I believe that,” Harry chuckles darkly. “And I hate him for it. Why can’t he be–?” he trails off, like he doesn’t know what he’s trying to say, or maybe doesn’t want to say it out loud.

“More like me?” Gwen hazards a guess. She flips the vial over and carefully draws the green liquid into the needle. “Because he’s a good kid. Because you can’t bribe Peter into giving in, and he’ll never give up on his ideals. Because he was salutatorian, and to be the best, you can’t let people get in your way. Even if you love them.”

“Is that why we’re the best?” Harry asks. She’ll take that as an admission. Gwen doesn’t punch the air and shout in triumph, but she kind of feels like it.

“Hey, you’ve known me a couple hours, man,” she says. She holds the needle up to the light and stares at the serum inside, wondering if she’s right. Wondering if it will work like she thinks it will.

 Gwen swallows. “You have no idea what I would or wouldn’t do,” she says, looking at him.

Harry sees her look and grabs for the needle, but she slaps his hand away. Glaring, Gwen manhandles his arm into her grip, swabs the skin over a vein to sterilize it, and tilts her head to the side. She fixes Harry with a questioning look.

“Would you sacrifice everything to get what you want?” Harry asks, eyes flashing at Gwen. “I would.”

She pierces his skin with the needle and injects him with the serum. He doesn’t even flinch.

*

Harry makes faces at her as she leaves the voicemail on Peter’s phone.

“I was helping you sound less like your cat just got run over,” he says, raising his hands in the air with a laugh.

“You’re a dick,” Gwen says, rolling her eyes. “A rich dick.”

“Ooh, talk dirty to me, baby,” Harry laughs, leering forwards with a wink. “Has anyone ever told you –?”

“If you want to have sex, I’ll let you call me ‘Peter,’” Gwen smiles spitefully, quid pro quo.

Harry blanches and leans back, his spine like a board. He doesn’t say anything, which says more than his silence intends. Harry stares at the discarded coffee cups, at the bloody cotton swab Gwen is pressing to the inside of her elbow where the needle pricked her, at the light above as it flickers.

“You have to love someone an awful lot to hate them,” Gwen says to Harry’s silence.

He breathes in deep, presses his lips together like he’s trying to hold it all in, and lets out a steady breath. “You know how I knew?” he asks, chuckling darkly. “You know how?”

She doesn’t know what he’s talking about, but she doesn’t say anything.

“His voice,” Harry says, shaking his leg up and down. “His voice when he – I threw a glass at him. He wasn’t scared. He wasn’t surprised. He was just…disappointed. In me.” Harry laughs bitterly.

Gwen searches for something, _anything_ to say, but she doesn’t seem to have the words. Harry speaks before she can try to come up with something.

“Come on,” he says, clearing his throat. He stands, picking up Gwen’s suitcase from the floor.“You’ve got a plane to not catch.”

*

Harry promised not to go easy on her, and he doesn’t.

Gwen feels like a rag doll or worse, like she’s just a bag of bones waiting to break. She feels like she’s ruptured from the inside out, pain like fire in her veins. She hates playing the bait, hates to see Peter hurt like this, but she knows Harry doesn’t intend to kill Peter.

He just wants to make him bleed.

“Can’t I just, you know, have make-up sex with him and stab him with a needle?” she’d asked, biting her lip. “Once he’s stopped Max – don’t look at me like that, Osborn, you know he will – we’ll have time.”

“No,” Harry shook his head. “There can’t be any loose ends. He needs to let you go. They all do, for this to work.

Maybe Gwen needs to let Peter go – maybe _Harry_ needs to let him go.

“Does it hurt?” Gwen whispered as Harry helped her load her suitcases into the back of the cab. “I mean. Do you think it’ll hurt?”

“What?” he asked quietly.

“Dying,” Gwen said.

—She feels her stomach lurch as the web snaps – feels the air rush out of her lungs as she falls backwards towards the floor. _So,_ she thinks. _This is it. This is_ —

“Well, yeah,” Harry answered with a laugh. “It’s dying.”

***

The skin on Gwen’s chest is the first to crack.

She’s wearing a pretty blue dress with a low-cut neck, modest enough for a funeral but bright enough for Gwen. Harry only notices it because he’s looking for it; hairline cracks building over the skin, ruptures and valleys growing by the second, the sound like the crackle of shattering safety glass.

In moments, Gwen’s body is covered by a web of fractures.

Harry grins.

Gwen’s skin breaks like a mirror shattering, seven years of bad luck – and she sits up gasping, her new pink skin emerging from her shell.

Harry is still laughing, throwing his head back to howl at the starless skies.

“You’re a creepy fucking bastard,” Gwen says in a voice a million times rougher than before. She coughs, clearing her throat.

“I try,” Harry says, swallowing down another laugh, forcing it down into the pit of fire in his stomach. “Welcome back to the land of the living.”

“Six months,” Gwen breathes, struggling to stand up in her coffin on wobbly legs. Harry doesn’t help her. She has to do this on her own. “Six months, and that’s all you got? Try harder, Osborn.”

“It’s _aliiiiive_!” he says in a mocking voice.

Gwen ignores him. She walks to the other end of the hole and tries to climb up the side, but she can’t quite make it. Harry watches her struggle for a few moments, but she freezes suddenly.

Gwen turns around, twisting, trying to reach the back collar of her dress.

"Hey,” Harry calls, panic rising. “What are you--?”

_Riiiiiip_ , the fabric falls away, and Gwen cries out as she stretches out her arms behind her – and there’s something –

“Gwen,” Harry says. He jumps to his feet. “Gwen, did you know this would –?”

Something extends, stretches, _grows_ from her back, dark and glistening in the moonlight.

“What the hell did you do?” Harry hisses.

He stares at Gwen in horror as she smirks, unfolding a pair of slimy, macabre insect wings from her back, moaning as they stretch out behind her.

“I made my own path,” she smiles spitefully, like that’s supposed to make any sense.

Harry hesitates, shrugs, and offers Gwen a hand up out of her grave.

*

_The End?_


End file.
